i have to do my procedure

Where five hundred years ago Mythra would have refused ever admitting defeat and ill-suitedness to a hobby, such as cooking, now she yielded that front to Pyra, and abandoned trying to uncover just why it was that the skill remained locked behind, under, the roots of the tree of life that divided their mind into this and that, left and right, fire and light, nurture and smite.

She'd tried embroidery, briefly, and stuck herself, privately frustrated with the cheapness of the materials Haze was forced to use - if she'd had a proper embroidery hoop, she might have been able to be precise, but with only Aspar Snakemeat to work atop, Mythra's work quickly became shoddy. Lora's weaving held some promise, but it too unraveled Mythra's patience far too quickly for any real strides to be made.

And then there was drawing. Painting, she'd never gotten to try, but Mythra had persevered, with Minoth's encouragement, to at least be able to pin rudimentary three-quarter-view busts of all their companions.

Brighid had been the easiest one to capture, with her heart-shaped face and pristinely-sculpted hair. Not a single lock of fluff could throw Mythra's concentration, when the pencil just didn't move the way she needed it to for Addam or Lora's, even Jin's, scruffy tops. Aegaeon had distinctive features as well, but...way too complicated. Hugo was too smooth, Haze too flighty.

And Minoth. Mythra had drawn Minoth many a time. He'd even allowed her to make it a daily project (as long as that had lasted), posing brows and eyes and then sneaking up behind her to spy on the final result. When Mythra had chosen a boulder, away from the rest of the party, for seat, he'd scoot up behind her and park his chin over her shoulder, limber beyond hope. The free lock of hair, the hardest thing to sketch accurately in such a way that its motion and beauty were preserved, would tickle Mythra's cheek, and once she'd stopped backhanding Minoth, the anti-arduent cat, for his trouble, she even got used to it.

Now, though...

Now Minoth, Cole, stooped without hope of ever straightening, butt fixed to the back of his chair not because his legs were that long but because he needed that much support.

She'd asked him for some cheap paper, a bulk-buy pen, but he'd shook his head and handed her the finest textured stock he had. Because of course, he gestured to the rest of the stack, he'd never use it all.

So Mythra sat, idly crosshatching more than she was sketching, studying Minoth, and the room. The bookshelves, the sextant, the insect cages. Could she perhaps render the isometric structure of this space, full of right angles and spline curves? Did Minoth fit into it, now, though his back was no longer straight, though the incorrigible sharp twist of his single "bang" had flattened?

She brushed the side of a hand against the page, turned it up and inspected the fresh burnish of charcoal.

If he didn't sit all the way back in the chair, she'd cross her legs and hunch over his shoulder now. She would.

Cole hadn't said anything much to her since she'd assumed the artist's position, and Mythra knew it must be manifestly painful for him to even contemplate sitting across from her and levelling the question: "So what's up? What's new? How's tricks?"

What was new, though?

"So how 'bout Brighid, huh? She's changed."

She caught the edge of a smile forming on Cole's face: first wry, then lip-eating. "You certainly could say that."

"Have you ever talked with her? Recently, I mean. The new her."

"There have been...sentiments exchanged."

Sentiments. Right.

Mythra could see it, in her mind's eye (and what a far-reaching all-seeing eye it was): a chorus of Brighids, all channeled into one ebullient body, hurling judgement after judgement upon Minoth's head, each punctuated by a reverberating boom that seemed to slap the side of Minoth's jaw far more effectively than even a thousand ravishing whipswords could. Yes, see it, and hear it, too.

"You offend me."

"I doubt there's much in your estimation of eligibility."

"You are an idiot."

"Shut the [BLEEP] up."

"I knew I never met a trustworthy man who wasn't royalty. My apologies, Jin."

Mythra would admit (probably in six months' time, and perhaps only when it was too late) that she loved Minoth; that she cared deeply for her friend long gone by the wayside and couldn't ever put into words the complexity of the manyfold testy glances and crying fits alike he'd borne witness to. Her tenderest memories of Addam, apart from those shared with Milton, were of her old Driver laughing fondly with his best friend, pausing in his rebuke of her to simply be human again.

It was that slackening of his guard that had made Mythra instinctively attach herself to Minoth. Not that she'd had a choice, given that they were sharing resonance with the same Driver, but could you imagine sharing a Driver with Brighid, and having to deal with...all that?

For a dramaturge, Minoth had been relatively low-drama. And he'd stayed that way. Not revolutionary, nor even very rebellious. Reflective. Resilient. Reliable, to Vandham's gang, it seemed.

Architect, he wasn't perfect, but he'd been a nice guy, hadn't he? Even a great guy.

And look at Mythra, here, talking as if he was already dead, when he sat not three feet from her, not three inches, but directly under her chin.

Mythra returned to her starkly non-sexual fantasy of Brighid.

Yes, Mythra loved Minoth and cherished this new chance to spend time with him again, but that, that...that was beautiful.